TELEGRAPH BLOGS: How many screw ups does it take for the Obama administration to fire a grossly incompetent cabinet member? Well, apparently more than two.
At Christmas, when a brave passenger prevented the underwear bomber, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, from blowing up a US airliner, President Obama’s Homeland Security chief – Janet Napolitano – immediately reassured the public. She insisted that “the system worked”.
Nonsense. Unless you believe that the US airline protection system is dependent on quick-witted Dutch tourists, it failed entirely, a fact which was proved again when the event was fully evaluated by investigators.
Since the lives of the public are literally in Napolitano’s hands, a major mistake like this arguably merits a sacking. But perhaps even cabinet members ought to be allowed one big screw up.
But now Napolitano has done it again. After another attempt to set off a terrorist bomb, in Times Square, Napolitano was at it again with her “everything is just fine” theme. In an interview with ABC News the day of the attempted attack Napolitano asserted that “Times Square I think is now safe”. She also insisted that there was no evidence that this was “anything other than a one-off” event. Finally, she tried to reassure the public by commenting that the bomb “doesn’t look like it is a very sophisticated one”. Read on and comment >>> James Corum | Friday, May 14, 2010
